Tag: Theotokos

5th century AD: Furious clamor as police descend on Constantinople’s Chalkoprateia, the Bronze District, where Jewish artisans live, creating and selling bronze items. Screaming in outrage, bearded Jews in caps are dragged from their shops, beaten, banished. An earlocked apprentice frantically holds up an unfinished bronze shield in futile defense as Imperial soldiers burst into the workshop. The synagogue is […]

THE PILLAR OF LIGHT There it was just behind the tree, up on that part of the wall that’s covered with vines most of the year. One perfect filigree capital perched on one perfect pillar, one tiny part of the Boukoleon Palace intact, one of two in the whole splintered stone pile to reach us direct from the ninth century. (The […]